Colorful
by thesecondshelf
Summary: Hannah Longbottom is not your typical barmaid, but that's ok; after all, the Weasley clan is quite a bit more colorful than the typical private party at the Leaky. Takes place during Victoire's Hogwarts graduation party and features a nosy old lady, a heart to heart between Hannah and Arthur, precocious!Lily, and slightly destructive!James,Louis,&Hugo. Oneshot. Canon pairings.


A/N: Yes, you read that right: the two main characters are Hannah and Mr. Weasley. I'm not sure how this works either. Rest assured, it is canon... or at least, my version of canon. I'd say the timeline and descriptions of the little ones fit quite well with my fic "Family Matters." Enjoy the fluff!

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**Colorful**

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"My kids were at Hogwarts with Molly and Arthur's children," said the woman, leaning over her afternoon glass of Chardonnay.

"Oh really?" Hannah asked from her place behind the bar, pretending that having had Hogwarts-aged children at one point during an almost 20 year span was impressive.

"Oh, yes! I forget which ones, but I know some of them were there. Easy to spot, aren't they?"

"Hmmm," Hannah hummed noncommittally.

"At least, they used to be. Are all those children Weasleys?" she asked, glancing back to the semi-private side room that currently held Victoire Weasley's Hogwarts graduation party.

"Yes, Ma'am," Hannah replied, continuing to tidy up the bar. Technically, a few of them were Potters, one was a Lupin and there were quite a few Delacours in attendance - but the thought alone of trying to explain that to the woman in front of her was exhausting.

"There must be two dozen people in there!" she slurred. Hannah made a mental note to suggest that her last glass of wine be her last.

"Oh, there's more than that," Hannah informed her, thinking about the guest list and the menu she and Arthur Weasley had put together in preparation for the event.

"Goodness. And they all look so different!" she exclaimed. "I wouldn't even recognize them on the street. What a shame. I remember when they all used to have that colorful hair! The grandparents must be so disappointed. Are any of their grandchildren ginger?"

Hannah was thankfully distracted before she had to answer that ignorant comment.

"Hannah, darling!" came a voice from over the tipsy woman's head.

"How can I help you, Arthur?" Hannah replied, relieved.

"We're running low on pumpkin juice, is all. Lils here has collected some of the empty pitchers for you."

"What a helper you've got there," Hannah said with a laugh, shuffling around her bar to collect the pitchers from the young girl. "Want to help me fill them?"

Lily nodded with a shy smile, and her grandfather hoisted her up onto the bar next to the tap. Lily giggled as he plopped her down with an exaggerated grunt, and she immediately busied herself with filling the empty pitchers.

"Can you watch her for a minute?" Arthur asked. Hannah nodded in reply, and Arthur headed towards the loo.

"Aren't you precious!" exclaimed the patron at the bar, rudely reaching out to touch Lily's hair without her permission. Lily leaned away from the woman and wrinkled her nose. "What beautiful red hair you have! You must be your grandfather's favorite!"

"Granddad Weasley doesn't have favorites," Lily replied, in that voice all children use when adults don't make any sense. "He loves us all the same. And please don't touch me."

Hannah laughed out loud. Granddad Weasley may not have favorites, but Auntie Hannah sure did - and without a doubt, Harry and Ginny's youngest (and her husband's goddaughter) was it.

"All right, Lils," Hannah intervened, taking the girl by the hand and letting her jump off the high counter. "Mrs. Parker here was just trying to say that she likes your pretty hair, and Granddad must like it too because it looks like Grandma Weasley's."

"Grandma Weasley's hair is grey," Lily replied, rolling her eyes. "My hair looks like Grandma Potter's."

"Of course it does," Hannah whispered, a lump suddenly appearing in her throat. "My mistake. Do you think you can carry this full pitcher all by yourself?"

Lily nodded enthusiastically, wrapping two small hands around the outside of the (half-full) pitcher. Hannah sent her on the way with a pat on the back, a line of levitating full pitchers following her.

When Hannah turned back to the bar, Mrs. Parker was gone, leaving behind a half-full glass of white wine and two gold galleons.

Arthur returned just as Hannah began chuckling to herself.

"What's so funny?" Arthur asked.

"I think your granddaughter just cost me a tip," Hannah replied.

"No! How much do I owe you?" he asked, fumbling for his coin purse.

"I'd consider us even if you joined me for a drink. I'm in need of some intelligent conversation after an hour with that biddy," Hannah said, pouring him a butterbeer before he even had time to answer her.

"All right, but only if you tell me what my dear granddaughter did to scare off your customer."

"Oh, she just put a nosy old lady in her place is all. The woman made some obnoxious comment about how your family used to have colorful hair."

"Well, we all go grey eventually-" Arthur started with a laugh.

"No, she wasn't talking about you," Hannah interrupted. "She was talking about Lils, and how her hair color is a bit different than the rest of her generation's."

"Ahh," Arthur said in understanding. "Little Lily Luna, my red-headed princess."

"A princess who doesn't take any nonsense from pushy strangers," Hannah added.

"The best kind of princess, if you ask me," the older man said with a grin and a tip of his glass. "I'd say she reminds me of her mother, but that's not quite right. She's definitely her own person at the ripe old age of nine."

"I suppose that's a side-effect of being raised by Harry and Ginny Potter," Hannah laughed. Arthur nodded.

"Sometimes I feel bad for them," Arthur said, his gaze wandering to the side room where his large and loud family was gathered. "They have a lot to live up to, after all. But then I remember how truly marvelous they all are in their own right, and I see just how hard my daughter and son work to make sure they know that- and I wonder what on Earth I was thinking."

Hannah smiled, and asked him the question she'd been meaning to ask since he flooed her to book the party a few weeks ago.

"How does it feel to have a grandchild old enough to be a Hogwarts alum?"

"Oh, I'm used to it already. Teddy finished 2 years ago, after all," Arthur said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Granddad!" came a chorus of voices, interrupting before Hannah had a chance to apologize for asking such a foolish question. The voices were followed by surprisingly loud footfalls and a series of "oofs" as 3 youngsters crashed into Hannah's old bar.

"Goodness, boys! Be careful! That bar is older than you, you know," Arthur scolded.

"Lou pushed me!"

"Jamie tripped me!"

"It's all Hugh's fault!"

"I did not ask how you ended up crashing into Mrs. Longbottom's bar. I told you to be more careful."

"Sorry, Granddad-" James said at the same time Louis muttered "Sorry, Mrs. Longbottom" and Hugo cried out "Sorry Aunt Hannah!"

"That's better. Now what is so important that you three had to imitate a set of bludgers flying through the Leaky?"

"Grandma's looking for you," James answered.

"She sent us to find you," Hugo continued

"Cause the cake's out, but Dad says we're not allowed to cut it without you," Louis finished.

"Oh goodness. It looks like I'm about to miss something important. Give me a minute to finish up here with Mrs. Longbottom and I'll be right there, wand at the ready."

The boys were gone in a moment in the exact same fashion that they came in, somehow managing to slide across the better part of her newly-purchased pub.

"Sorry about them," Arthur said with a laugh. "Are you going to join us?"

"My bartender should be here in 15 minutes," Hannah assured him, "as should my husband. So, soon."

"Lovely. I know Vic would love to have her favorite professor join her for cake."

"Oh, I'm sure Neville is not her favorite professor," Hannah said, "but he definitely was Teddy's - and I know Neville would love to catch up with his protégé."

Arthur lifted himself off his barstool carefully, and Hannah smiled at the rare glimpse of this patriarch-extraordinaire showing his age. He turned towards the room his grandsons had recently barreled back into, stopping for a moment to take in the scene.

"Did that batty woman actually say that my family _used to_ be colorful?" Arthur asked with a laugh.

Hannah followed his gaze. She took in little Lily's brothers with their jet-black hair, Ron and Hermione's children with their unruly brunette curls, George and Angelina's mocha-skinned toddler, Percy and Audrey's hazel-eyed and freckle-faced girls, and Bill and Fleur's three ice-blond children, the oldest (and the reason for this very gathering) hanging on a boy with light eyes and turquoise hair.

Hannah laughed with him.

"Perhaps she forgot her glasses at home?" Hannah asked with a shrug.

"Maybe that was why she ran out so quick. And here you are, blaming it on my youngest granddaughter."

"She won't be the youngest for long!" Hannah reminded him, gesturing towards a very-pregnant Angelina Johnson.

"What makes you so sure Angie's having a girl?" he asked her.

"Call it mother's intuition," Hannah replied cryptically, resting a hand on her own rounded abdomen. Arthur smiled.

"Well, you must be right. I never argue with a pregnant woman," he said, turning toward the room where the rest of his family was gathered.

"That explains why Molly spent so much time with child!" she called to his retreating back. He laughed out loud at her reply, but he didn't turn around.

Hannah wiped the bar down one last time, hoping that her employee and her husband would both arrive sooner than expected so she could join the celebration going on across the room. She sighed, winded from that simple action, and envisioned the day when her little one would arrive and she would officially start a colorful family of her own.


End file.
